Sleep Disorders in Children with Neurodevelopmental Disorders

Dear Colleagues,

The last decades saw a growing interest in the study of sleep in children with neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs). The amount of scientific publications on sleep disorders in children and adolescents with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, autism spectrum disorders, developmental coordination disorders, and intellectual disabilities has increased dramatically over the past years, reflecting the growing awareness that children with NNDs may frequently have sleep problems.

Nonetheless, this research field is still in its infancy, and the complex relationship between sleep alteration and neurodevelopment disorders is far from being fully understood. For example, while it is well known that some symptoms and behaviours of children with NDDs tend to change as the child grows, whether this is true also for sleep disturbances is yet to be investigated.

Likewise, the mechanisms by which sleep disturbances contribute to behavioural symptoms and neurocognitive deficits remain unclear.

This Special Issue will focus on sleep disturbances in children with NDDs by exploring the bidirectional relationship between sleep and neurodevelopmental disorders and the consequences of sleep alterations on children’s daytime functioning and overall health.

Three main research topics will be addressed in this Special Issue: 1) the prevalence and characteristics of sleep disorders in specific NDDs, 2) the relationship between behavioural and neurocognitive impairments and sleep alterations, and 3) the longitudinal course of sleep abnormalities in neurodevelopment disorders.

We welcome studies that investigate sleep by means of both objective (video-PSG, actigraphy) and subjective approaches, as well as studies that investigate neurocognitive and behavioural symptoms with respect to sleep alterations.

The management of patients with neurodevelopment disorders can be difficult and is strongly based on a multidisciplinary approach; therefore, with this Special Issue, we aim to provide physicians that are not experts in sleep disorders the knowledge necessary to increase the recognition and improve the management of sleep disorders in children with NDD.

Dr. Marco Filardi
Prof. Dr. Lino Nobili
Prof. Dr. Oliviero Bruni
Guest Editors

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